


Road Trip

by longhairshortfuse



Series: One Shot Wonders [1]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-20
Updated: 2014-08-20
Packaged: 2018-02-14 00:57:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2171841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longhairshortfuse/pseuds/longhairshortfuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos wants to take Cecil on a road trip for a few days. Cecil isn't keen, he has tried this before, but humours him anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Road Trip

One Sunday, on a whim, Carlos asked Cecil if he would like to go somewhere, anywhere. A road trip just for a few days.  
"Why?"  
"Doesn't matter, just to be somewhere else for a while. We both have a few days off."  
"What would we do?"  
"Doesn't matter! We pack the car, mine would be better for fuel economy, drive, stop when we see somewhere we like or we're tired, look around and when we've seen enough we move on."  
"I don't see..."  
"Cecil, you told me you've never been out of Night Vale apart from a trip to Europe that you think might have been a hallucination. Are you not even a little bit curious about other places? I'm only suggesting a road trip for a few days, nothing major. Khoshekh will be fine, I can ask someone from work to look in on him if the interns can't."  
"If you want, but it seems a strange idea just to take off like that."

They packed the car on Monday morning and set off early. Carlos added a can of fuel and made a note of the car's range in case there were no gas stations.  
"I still don't see the point." Cecil drank his coffee slowly.  
"It's experience. That's all. Going somewhere and doing something you normally wouldn't. Even if it's horrible, it's different. Observe, make notes, investigate a new place."  
"Have you done this kind of thing before?"  
"Yes, sometimes if I needed to clear my head I'd pack and drive somewhere random. Vanish for a few days. Freaked Rochelle out the first time I did it, she almost called the police."  
Cecil started. "Why would she do that! What had you done?"  
"I went missing. I left her a note on the fridge but she didn't see it for two days."  
"That's hardly a matter for a police investigation, people go missing all the time." 

They set off later than Carlos planned. He thought they could drive for most of the day, find a motel, look around whatever town they reached then decide what to do and where to go next. His life was so structured usually, having to be in a specific place at a specific time, that he was attracted to the recklessness of it. Cecil was less enthusiastic. Carlos knew Cecil was humouring him, but hoped he would appreciate the freedom of having no itinerary, no deadlines and no plan.

"So where should we _not_ go?" Carlos asked, when they were in the car.  
"Okay, not route 800, it goes to you-know-where, and not the main road east because it goes nowhere, just gets narrower and dustier and ends. The rest I really don't know."  
"Fine. North it is. Choose some music."  
Carlos set off as Cecil fiddled with the car radio until he found an eighties station. "Oh, Talking Heads, I like this one." 

Six hours later they were back in the outskirts of Night Vale.  
"That's really weird! Cecil, I could have sworn we went in a straight line and didn't turn off, but we're back here. Looks like the road North loops around back to town. Hang on..." Carlos looked around in confusion. "This is _exactly_ the road we drove out on! Look at that building, I remember it on the right and now it is on the left. And that one. Cecil, what the fuck is going on here? We did not turn around so how can we be back home? I need to come back out with my gps recorder. This is interesting."  
Cecil shrugged. "If we're home at least we get to sleep in our own bed. I never sleep well anywhere else."  
He sincerely hoped Carlos wouldn't try any of the other roads that appeared to leave town.

**Author's Note:**

> Talking Heads  
> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SKqzayNo4Dk  
> Taking the title literally.


End file.
